


Five Times Ian Tries to Tell Barbara How He Feels About Her + One Time He Doesn't Have To

by larryyourwaiter



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/M, i relate to ian because i too am hopelessly in love with barbara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 17:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14857046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larryyourwaiter/pseuds/larryyourwaiter
Summary: Five times Ian tries to tell Barbara how he feels about her + one time he doesn't have to.





	Five Times Ian Tries to Tell Barbara How He Feels About Her + One Time He Doesn't Have To

**1**

 

It’s the first quiet moment they’ve had in a while since boarding the Doctor’s ship. Barbara and Ian have found themselves alone outside on an alien planet, both laying down on grass as they look up at the starry sky above them while the Doctor and Susan are somewhere in the TARDIS repairing something. Barbara is laughing at something that Ian has just said and Ian can’t help the grin that forms on his face in return. As Barbara’s laughter dies down, she and Ian stare at each other smiling for a few seconds until Ian gets the urge to kiss her so he  looks away. He clears his throat and then looks back at her.

 

“I know we can’t tell anyone about the aliens or the ship or anything we’ve seen but sometimes I wish I was able to talk to someone,” Ian admits.

 

“You have me,” Barbara says. “And Susan and the Doctor.”

 

“Yes, but you’ve all experienced it with me,” Ian says. “I wish I could tell an outsider, someone who doesn’t know about any of the things I’ve been through.”

 

“I feel the same, I suppose, if I’m being honest,” Barbara nods. “But no one would ever believe any of it.”

 

“You have a point,” Ian agrees. “I’m not even sure I believe it and I went through it all.” He laughs and looks up at the sky above them.

 

Barbara looks up too and then points at a star. “We could’ve been there. We could’ve seen any of these stars up close.”

 

Ian can’t help but smile. “It makes it all seem even more beautiful, doesn’t it? Now that we’ve seen all that we have?”

 

Barbara nods in agreement and then turns so that she’s on her side facing him, propped up on her elbow. Ian does the same.

 

“It is more magical,” Barbara says. “Feels like I can appreciate it more.”

 

“Yeah. Feels like I can appreciate the other things in life, too. Like Susan.” _Like you_ , Ian doesn’t say. “If we hadn’t gone to that junkyard that one day after school to talk to her and her grandfather, we would’ve never had any of these adventures.”

 

“I never thought about that.” Barbara brushes a strand of her hair behind her ear, Ian’s eyes tracking the movement. “Suppose we got lucky that day, didn’t we?”

 

“I don’t think it was luck,” Ian shrugs. “I think it had to do with a lot more than luck.” Barbara’s eyes scan his face and she opens her mouth to reply but Ian cuts her off. “Barbara, there’s something I ought to tell you—”

 

The TARDIS doors open behind them and Susan appears. She gestures for them to come back in.

 

“Grandfather and I fixed it, we can go now!”

 

“We’ll be right there, Susan!” Barbara shouts back. Susan disappears into the TARDIS and Barbara turns back to Ian. “What were you saying?”

 

Ian shakes his head, having lost his courage. “Nothing, it’s not important. Let’s go.” He gets to his feet and holds his hand out to help her up.

 

* * *

 

**2**

 

Barbara, Ian, Susan, and the Doctor all run to the ship, not looking at the creature that’s chasing them in case it slows them down. They enter the TARDIS, all of them — especially the Doctor — trying to catch their breaths.

 

“Shut the doors, Susan!” Ian yells and Susan runs over to the console and presses the button that controls the doors. They close, locking the creature out and leaving the four of them to safety.

 

“Everyone all right?” the Doctor asks, going over to Susan and putting his arm around her.

 

“I’m fine, Grandfather,” Susan answers, smiling up at him.

 

“I’m all right,” Barbara says and Ian nods in agreement.

 

“Good, good,” the Doctor replies and he ruffles Susan’s hair, pleased that none of them had died or gotten too injured. “Susan, come with me. There’s something I need to very quickly check in the next room.”

 

Susan follows the Doctor into the next room, leaving Barbara and Ian alone.

 

“You sure you’re okay?” Ian asks, moving over to Barbara and putting his hand on her arm. “We almost didn’t make it back here in time.”

 

“I’m positive,” Barbara answers, giving Ian a smile that makes his heart beat a bit faster. “But what about you, are you all right?”

 

“As all right as I’ll ever be,” Ian replies, giving her a smile of his own. “I’m alive so there’s not much to complain about.”

 

Barbara laughs. “Believe me, I wouldn’t change any of this for the world but I do sometimes wish we could get some peace and quiet occasionally.”

 

“I know what you mean,” Ian nods. It’s very rare that they aren’t running for their lives from something trying to kill them. “It is all very exciting and I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been before but I’d just like to relax once in a while.”

 

“You think the Doctor would listen to us if we asked him if we could just... take a vacation?” Barbara asks.

 

“I don’t think he could even if he wanted to. He can’t even bring us home, how’s he going to try to go somewhere else and actually succeed?” Ian jokes.

 

“You’re right. I suppose one of these days we might end up somewhere that isn’t dangerous by accident.” Barbara shakes her head fondly and then asks, “What is it?” when Ian gives her a lingering look.

 

“Nothing,” Ian says quickly, suddenly looking nervous. Barbara raises her eyebrows at him and he finds himself getting flustered. He’s spent a long time trying to hide his feelings for this woman but sometimes he worries that he’s too obvious. He’s certain Susan and the Doctor already know and he wouldn’t be surprised if Barbara herself did too. He’s never been good at keeping secrets so he figures he may as well tell her himself before she finds out by accident. “Actually, I think there’s something that I need to say...”

 

“What is it?” Barbara asks, encouraging him, giving him her undivided attention.

 

Ian pauses for a moment as he tries to control his nerves. “Well—”

 

He’s cut off as Susan and the Doctor choose that moment to enter the room again and he doesn’t know if he’s more relieved or annoyed. Barbara gives him a curious look but Ian shakes his head, telling her he’ll tell her later.

 

* * *

 

**3**

 

Barbara and Ian are left to watch in horror as the aliens take the Doctor and Susan away.

 

“We have to do something!” Ian tells Barbara once it’s safe to come out of where they were hiding.

 

Barbara shakes her head. “We’d just end up getting caught too and then we’d _really_ not be able to help them. We need to figure out where they were taken and how we can get there without being seen and how to get all four of us out of here.”

 

As her words sink in, Ian finds himself suddenly very grateful that Barbara is here with them because she has more sense than the other three of them combined and without her, they’d most likely be dead already.

 

“Okay,” Ian says, willing himself to stop panicking so he can think clearly enough to help Barbara form a plan. “They’re clearly planning to kill Susan and the Doctor... Maybe they’re in some type of holding cell?”

 

Barbara nods at him. “That shouldn’t be too difficult to find considering how small this place is. We’ll have to find a guard or someone that we can distract and take the keys.”

 

“We could cause commotion in another room loud enough that they can hear. Like a small explosion or something,” Ian suggests.

 

“Good idea.” Barbara smiles at him. “Then we can just stop one of the guards as they are distracted, take the keys, and get the Doctor and Susan out.”

 

“Let’s just hope the guards will be held off long enough for us to get them out _and_ for all of us to escape,” Ian says.

 

“It’s no use thinking negatively,” Barbara replies. “If it doesn’t work out, we’ll just do what we always do: run.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” Ian chuckles and puts his hand on Barbara’s back, guiding her towards the direction the Doctor and Susan had been taken.

 

The path is dark and Ian tells himself the reason he keeps his hand on Barbara is so he doesn’t lose her because it would be a disaster if they got separated. But really, Ian knows it’s because whenever they’re in close proximity of each other it gives him a warm feeling in his chest that he can’t seem to get enough of and leads him to touch her as much as possible, whether it’s running into each others arms after they’ve had an adventure where one of them or both had almost died or holding onto each other briefly as they walk past each other or even just ‘accidentally’ brushing against each other when they’re standing just a bit too close.

 

“Are you blushing?” Barbara asks and as Ian is pulled out of his thoughts about her, he blushes even more at her accusation.

 

“What?” he asks, pretending like he can’t feel how pink his cheeks currently are. “Blushing? No. Why would I be blushing?”

 

“I don’t know,” Barbara answers, seeing right through his words. “Why are you blushing?”

 

“I’m not,” Ian tries but Barbara looks at him and he can tell she doesn’t buy that at all. He hesitates, part of him telling him to just _tell her already_ , the other part warning him to guide the conversation as far away from this topic as possible. “I was just... thinking about something.”

 

“About what?”

 

“About...” he trails off, actually considering telling her. He opens his mouth to finally say it before he loses his nerve, to tell her that it was _her_ he was thinking about, but he hears footsteps from ahead of them and pulls her to the side of the path where they’ll be hidden by shadows. He puts a finger to his lips to signal to her not to speak as the person walks past them and hopes she’ll forget all about the conversation they were just having.

 

* * *

 

**4**

 

Ian wakes up to someone shaking his shoulders. He begrudgingly opens his eyes, seeing Susan standing over him and giving him a smile.

 

“We’ve landed,” she informs him. “Grandfather wanted me to wake you up; we’re going to go and explore soon.”

 

Ian tiredly rubs at his eyes, stifling a yawn. He can’t keep track of time while he’s on the TARDIS and he doesn’t know if time even works the same here but he feels like he hasn’t been asleep for nearly enough hours. Nevertheless, he says, “Thank you, Susan. I’ll be out in a minute.”

 

Susan grins excitedly at him and leaves his room. Ian stretches his arms out and gets up, quickly changing his clothes before he exits the room and enters the main console room. Barbara is already standing there, looking chipper and awake. She turns around as she hears Ian enter.

 

“Ian!” she says, smiling brightly at him. “Good morning.”

 

“Good morning,” Ian repeats, giving her a smile back, albeit a more sleepy one. “Did Susan wake you up?”

 

Barbara nods, “Just a few minutes ago.”

 

“A few minutes ago?” Ian asks. “And you’re already so lively?”

 

Barbara shrugs. “I don’t find it _that_ difficult to wake up in the mornings.”

 

“Well, I don’t know how you do it,” Ian tells her. “I could’ve slept for several more hours if I had the chance right now.”

 

“I’m not saying that I’m not tired,” Barbara replies. “Because I am very tired. I’m just good at functioning on low hours of sleep, it appears.”

 

“Either way, I’m jealous,” Ian jokes. “But how does the Doctor survive? He needs more sleep than all of us combined and yet he’s always awake before us and he’s always running around whenever we go anywhere.”

 

“Well, this is the Doctor we’re talking about,” Barbara says as if that explains everything.

 

Ian laughs and nods. “You have a valid point there.”

 

Barbara laughs as well. “Let’s not say anything more about him before he hears us.”

 

“You’re right,” Ian says. “He can never hear us properly unless it’s him we’re talking about.”

 

Barbara shakes her head fondly, changing the subject. “Susan and I had a conversation the other day about how being in danger all the time really puts things into perspective.”

 

“What kind of things?” Ian asks.

 

“What’s most important to us,” Barbara explains. “For example, the Doctor has his ship and Susan.”

 

“Oh, I see,” Ian says. “Like I have—” he cuts himself off because he had almost said that he has _her_. Which is true but he isn’t about to tell Barbara that.

 

“What?” Barbara asks, now curious about what is most important to Ian.

 

Ian gives a laugh as he quickly tries to think of something that he can tell her. His brain, however, goes blank and he is unable to come up with anything so he sighs and begins to tell her what he had meant to say but he’s saved as Susan enters the room, excitedly telling them where they’ve landed.

 

* * *

 

**5**

 

When Ian wakes up, he has a pounding in his head and his whole body aches. He opens his eyes and finds that he’s laying on a cold floor and that his ankles are cuffed together. He frowns and tries to sit up slowly so that the pain in his head and body doesn’t get worse. His frown increases as he realizes where he is: a prison cell. He senses movement out of the corner of his eye so he turns and sees Barbara laying across from him, her ankles also cuffed. Ian crawls over to her and shakes her.

 

“Barbara,” he says gently, not wanting to speak too loudly in case she has a headache as bad as he does. “Barbara, wake up.”

 

Barbara’s gains consciousness immediately and she jerks away from him before her eyes fall on him and she realizes he’s not someone trying to harm her.

 

She looks around the room and asks, “Where are we?”

 

“Looks like some type of cell,” Ian answers. He reaches out and takes her arm to help her sit up. “They must have knocked us both out and then brought us here. Are you in any pain?”

 

“Not too much,” Barbara answers. “I just have a slight headache.”

 

Ian doesn’t know if she just doesn’t want him worrying about her or if she truly isn’t in a lot of pain but he nods. “We have to figure out how to get out of here.” He tries to stand up to examine the lock by the cell doors but almost falls over in the process. He looks down at Barbara and finds her watching him, trying to hold back a laugh. He turns back around as his own smile forms and he hobbles over to the doors. He pulls at the lock and shakes his head. “It’s no use even trying.”

 

“I suppose we’ll just have to wait for Susan and the Doctor,” Barbara says with a sigh. “And who knows how long it’ll take them to find us.”

 

“Have some faith in them, Barbara,” Ian tells her, the cuffs around his ankles making his journey back very awkward. “They’ll have to find us soon enough.”

 

“I hope so,” Barbara says. She tries to give him a small smile but it turns into a wince and she brings her hand up to rub at her forehead.

 

“You sure you aren’t in too much pain?” Ian asks, moving closer to her to rub her arm as some source of comfort.

 

“I’ll be okay,” Barbara answers but she leans into his touch.

 

“Okay,” Ian says, knowing he isn’t going to get anything out of her. “If you say so.”

 

“You don’t need to fuss so much, Ian. It’s just a simple headache,” Barbara tells him.

 

Ian shrugs. “I just don’t like to see you hurting.”

 

Ian feels himself blushing at his confession and Barbara looks surprised but she says, “Well, thank you. The same goes for you, Ian.”

 

Ian hesitates and considers just telling her everything, telling her that it’s more than just not liking to see her in pain because he’s _in love_ with her but he faintly hears Susan’s voice coming from the corridor and that idea goes out of his head because it means they’ll be escaping soon.

 

* * *

 

**+1**

 

Ian stares at the scene in front of him.

 

The corridor around him is musty and dark so he assumes that what he’s looking at is just a trick of the light. But the longer he looks, the more real it seems so he takes a step closer and tries to catch his breath as he realizes that it is indeed what he had initially thought.

 

It’s Barbara laying on the floor, unconscious.

 

Ian shakes his head — he doesn’t believe it, this isn’t supposed to happen, she’s supposed to always be _safe_. It doesn’t even occur to him that she might not be dead, just passed out, but he’s freaking out too much to think rationally and he drops to his knees, reaches out to her with shaking hands.

 

“Barbara,” he says. It’s nothing more than a whisper because that’s all he can manage right now and he watches her still body, watches as she doesn’t move an inch, watches the person who should currently be giving him that bright smile of hers as she teases him. He almost expects her to suddenly sit up and laugh at the look on his face and then reassure him that she’d never just leave him like that. But it never happens.

 

He doesn’t know what to do, he’s not thinking straight so he doesn’t yell for the Doctor or Susan, he just grips the bottom of Barbara’s turtleneck and holds it tightly like it’ll somehow bring her back to him. He looks at her face for any signs of life but he doesn’t see a thing.

 

“Barbara,” he repeats and then clears his throat when he hears himself speak, hears how choked up he sounds. He releases his hold on her shirt; there’s nothing he can do to save her.

 

He moves a hand up to cup her cheek and his eyes scan her face, not seeing her fingers briefly twitch.

 

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Ian begins before he can stop himself. He’s had so much bottled up inside of him, so much he’d meant to tell her but never got the courage or the chance to. Ian has seen a lot — more than he could ever have imagined — while traveling with the Doctor but Barbara just laying there, motionless, is without a doubt _the_ most scariest thing he has ever experienced in his life. His thumb gently strokes her cheek as he stares down at her.

 

He removes his hand from her face and leans in to press a kiss to her forehead, shutting his eyes. He continues speaking, missing Barbara blink her own eyes open.

 

“I’m sorry,” Ian murmurs. He doesn’t know what he’s sorry for — maybe for not being able to save her, maybe for that one time he raised his voice at her when he shouldn’t have, maybe for every wrong thing he’s ever done to her. “There’s so much that you should know but you _don’t_ and now you never will but Barbara, I—”

 

“Oh, Ian, you ridiculous man,” Barbara interrupts and Ian’s eyes shoot open to see her looking up at him, once again conscious, a weak and tired smile on her face. “Of course I know.”


End file.
